[.ca] 30-Minute Meals (ISBN 1891105035)

Great books, with a couple of caveats...:
I love Rachael Ray. Her show, "30 Minute Meals" is a favorite; it focuses on healthy foods, fresh produce and easy to follow recipes. This family friendly style of cooking was translated into her book, "30 Minute Meals" and I have enjoyed each recipe I have tried. A large proportion of the meals are family friendly as well-- my 6 year old and 2 year old are not finicky, but even so they have been very enthusiastic about the recipes. Now for the minuses-- 1) unlike the show, recipes are not grouped together with a main dish, side and a dessert/drink. This is rectified in the sequel, but it is not easy to always pick dishes that can be cooked at the same time and still finish in 30 minutes. 2) no pictures! I like pictures of the finished product. Not a biggie, but it bugged me. 3) I like the "pinch of this" and "dash of that" style of cooking. If you *have* to have precise measurements, this may not be your book. 4) I am a profecient cook, yet many of the dishes are really 40 minute meals for me. If you're a fast chopper and can multi-task, you may get these meals done in 30 minutes on the first try. Otherwise... plan for a little extra time. This is not a book for an advanced chef, it is simple food and it makes no pretensions to anything else. However, if you have a new cook in the family, or you are looking for new ideas for weeknight meals, I highly recommend this book. Ideal for your niece or nephew's first apartment!

This Book is a real miss:
Rachael Ray has no talent as an author or a cook. This book is full of recipes that you would find in any home ec course in high school. I returned it as quickly as I could.

Rattle them pots and pans:
If you're tired of heating up leftover leftovers but aren't quite up to cordon bleu, Rachael Ray's "30-minute meals", derived from her hit show on the Food Channel, offers up all kinds of yummy possibilities. Ray is fun to watch on her show; she's perky and down-to-earth and doesn't make cooking seem like some kind of exalted rite that intimidates beginners who haven't progressed beyond Boiling Water 101. Her bouncy exuberance comes across in her book and makes it enjoyable to read. I especially like the way her book is organized; there are special sections on Top Ten Meals With Fewer Than Ten Ingredients, Top Ten All-Time Favorites from her TV show, 30-minute pastas, salads and veggies, make your own take-out (pizza, sandwiches and Tex-Mex), burger recipes, Asian flavor, comfort food, and her own family favorites. Can all of these meals actually be made in 30 minutes? Well, unless you're as well-organized as Ray on her show with everything right at hand, slicing and dicing up a storm, probably not; but none of them should take more than 45 minutes and some of them really can be made from start to finish in half an hour. Her book is pretty heavy on pastas, which are typically quick to prepare, and if the Asian isn't 100% authentic, it's still fun to make and delicious to eat. Ray's instructions are simple and direct, easy for anyone to follow. What's more, none of the meals are difficult to prepare and all of them emphasize healthy eating. This is a great book for anyone who enjoys good eats without all the hassles that go into preparing them. Grab it and hit the kitchen.

A Tasty Symphony Filled with Zesty, Fresh Variations:
When someone makes a huge impact on American kitchens like Rachel Ray has done in the last ten years, it's well worthwhile going back to the origins of the phenomenon to understand it better. In the case of Rachel Ray, our friendly guide to home cooking that tastes like six hours went into the preparation . . . when the time was much less, that search begins with her 1998 book, 30-Minute Meals. You probably will have trouble finding this volume. I located this one in a dusty library corner, but you'll be glad you did. As background for this review, let me explain that I cook most of my own meals. But my idea of a quick meal is one that takes less than ten minutes. So thirty-minute meals seem like a lot of preparation. But I find myself craving from time-to-time the more subtle flavors that restaurants produce and often plop fresh ingredients of the most unusual sorts into everything to make them livelier. I was pleased to see that Ms. Ray shares my taste for subtle flavors and freshness. I was delighted to see that her ideas can provide the variety I'm looking for without spending much more money or time. In fact, if I make full-size recipes, the left-overs will keep me going through several meals. The extra time in preparation won't be more than an extra five minutes per meal. That's very attractive to me. This book is a wonder of efficiency. Like a good chef who wants to be able to provide lots of variety from a restaurant kitchen, Ms. Ray takes just a few ingredients, a few ways of preparing foods and turns those basics into virtually infinite zesty, fresh variations. I especially appreciated that she doesn't require me to learn dozens of new cooking methods, each of which is fraught with potential error. I only need to do two new things: Add cooked garlic to many dishes and reduce cooked anchovies into a seasoning. Neither activity is anything I would have tried without this book. I've seen, smelled and eaten too many disasters where the person cooking didn't have the garlic and anchovies under control. With Ms. Ray's guidance, you can't miss. She even has pictures to demonstrate and instructions to explain what to do. So what's in the book? Pastas (simple from your cupboard, complex like from a restaurant -- but still fast to produce, pestos, and some heartier options); salads to either complement the pastas with freshly made dressing or to serve as entrees . . . include warm salads; better tasting, healthier versions of the most popular take-out foods (pizza, sandwiches, burgers, Tex-Mex, Indian, and Asian); and great comfort foods whether from the Mediterranean menu, Tex-Mex, or northern Continental foods. Ms. Ray has a great instinct for what's healthy, featuring lots of foods low in fat . . . or healthy fats like olive oil. In fact, the only adjustment you need to make to any of the dishes is to substitute whole wheat or whole grain pasta for regular pasta to reduce the glycemic load. The book is as friendly as it can be. Everything is treated in a humble, simple way. Even measuring is simplified so you can get away from running your kitchen like experiments you did in high school chemistry. Don't know anything about cooking? No problem. With this cookbook, you'll wow most people with the tastes and freshness you deliver. They'll never realize it didn't take you long. Spend the added time you gain eating and laughing with those you love!

Disappointed:
I was disappointed by this book, based on the positive reviews I'd read here. Too many of the recipes were very similar to one another. Many were variations on hamburgers (or pork-burgers dressed up as Asian wraps). Too many were chili recipes. Some were ideas more than recipes (figs and proscuitto). I like what I've cooked so far, but I don't think this is a very innovative cookbook.